1. The list in brief
2. Best TV for most people
3. Best budget TV
4. Best for picture quality
5. Best 8K TV
6. Best cheap OLED TV
7. Best TV for sport
8. Best TV for sound
9. How to choose
10. How we test
The best TVs in this guide are all excellent, representing the pinnacle of what's possible in smart TVs at different prices levels. Each of our choices below are packed with detailed 4K (or 8K) screens, impressive HDR color and contrast, and robust features – including HDMI 2.1 connections with support for 120Hz input and Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) for next-gen game consoles and PCs.
As the latest smart TVs from the best brands in the business, including LG, Samsung, Sony and TCL, are released in 2023, we'll review them to keep this guide updated. You don't necessarily have to buy the very latest TV, though – televisions that were absolutely cutting edge a year or so ago are still around but with massively reduced prices, making them really smart buys. If money's tight they deliver a serious amount of bang for not very many bucks.
If you're willing to consider a slightly older model than the very latest 2023 sets, your possibilities expand quite considerably. It means you might be able to pick up one of the best OLED TVs, or that you can afford to get one of the best 75-inch TVs instead of one of the best 65-inch TVs. If there's one thing we like more than getting a new TV, it's knowing we got a good deal on it.
The TVs we've recommended here cover all kinds of display technologies and include the best 4K TVs and best 8K TVs. Our experienced reviewers have put all of these TVs through their paces to discover the best of each kind, so whether you're looking for the very latest tech or the very best value you'll find the perfect TV right here.
Al has been working in journalism for nearly three decades, and specializes in TV and projector testing. He's an ISF-trained video calibrator, and was previous the Editor of Sound & Vision magazine. An avowed movie fanatic, he spends his free time holed up in his home theater, usually with some new piece of equipment for testing.
The quick list
Want the simplest guide to the best TVs around? Here's our quick guide – you can read more in-depth verdicts on each TV by following the link, as well as alternative options in some cases.
The best TV for most people
The LG C2 does it all. Excellent OLED image quality, high-end gaming features, a big range of sizes, great smart TV software, and decent sound – all for a reasonable price.
The best value TV
Get great-looking mini-LED pictures for much cheaper than Samsung, with the same kind of amazing contrast. It's got the latest 120Hz gaming tech, too.
The best TV for sheer picture quality
Sony has combined its awesome processing with an advanced QD-OLED screen to create this mind-blowing TV. Detail, motion and contrast are elite, but so is the price.
The best for 8K detail
The Samsung QN900B's stunning picture quality with exceptional color and brightness takes 8K to a whole new level, and it really can look better than 4K.
The best budget OLED
If you're after an entry-level OLED TV that doesn't skimp on quality and is kind on the wallet, then LG's A2 is your best buy – as long as you don't need a bright TV. Gamers should give it a miss.
The best bright TV for daytime sport
This hits far higher brightness levels for watching on bright days than most similarly priced sets, and handles motion well – and is ideal for gaming.
Load the next product...
The best TV for sound
Sony uses the whole screen as a speaker to make this mid-range OLED sound a cut above the likes of the LG C2 out of the box. And it looks great, too.
The best TV 2023
Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.
The best TV for most people
LG's C2 OLED remains in the top spot on our list of the best TVs, even after its successor has been released. That's because its price has dropped so much, making it the overall best band-for-buck, even when a new-and-improved version is around.
Its Alpha a9 Gen 5 processor offers excellent object enhancement and dynamic tone mapping, and you’re getting ‘virtual surround sound’, with the TV upscaling stereo content into 7.1.2-channel sound. While we weren’t convinced by the claims of virtual surround sound, the audio performance is good for a thin TV, and a number of different sound modes means you should be able to find an audio profile that suits your needs.
In addition to fantastic picture quality, the C2 OLED includes four separate HDMI 2.1 ports, which is extremely rare, and means it's the perfect companion for the PS5, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S – as well as being great for movies.
The LG C2 isn’t flawless, however. Off-axis color saturation does diminish a bit when you move to the left or right of the screen when compared to the new QD-OLED models, and LG doesn't support either the IMAX Enhanced or HDR10+ format.
Read the full LG C2 OLED review
The LG C3 is the latest version of LG's mid-range OLED set, new for 2023. It replaces the LG C2 above – but right now, we rate the C2 as the better buy, because the differences in the picture quality and features are fairly subtle, but the C2 is now available for much cheaper prices. So while stocks of the C2 last, or while the C3 remains at such a higher price, we think most people will find the C2 better value.
However, make no mistake that the C3 is an excellent TV in every way. Our full review said that it's "already a contender for top TV of 2023", thanks to its impressive performance across the board. We said that contrast is great for the price, HDR images look rich and realistic, detail on the 4K screen is superb, and we didn't even feel the need to touch the 'HDR Expression Enhancer' image-boosting feature. Natural was more than good enough.
It's not as bright as some of the TVs here, reaching 820 nits of peak HDR brightness in our tests – the Samsung S95C absolutely crushes it for OLED performance, and the mini-LED TVs (including the cheaper TCL Roku TV) also have no trouble beating it. But the mini-LEDs don't have the same control of black tones, and the Samsung S95C costs a lot more. For movie lovers, no equivalent TV does it better.
The webOS smart TV software has been updated for 2023, and it's a big improvement – it's much easier to find what you want to watch, and for image-quality tinkerers to access their favorite settings from a smart 'Quick Menu'.
And like the LG C2, it's just phenomenal for gaming. If offers just 9.2ms of input lag, and four HDMI 2.1 ports, all with support for 4K 120Hz, Dolby Vision gaming, and VRR.
Read our full LG C3 review
The best budget TV
For a TV this affordable, it's really surprising to get a mini-LED screen. Using a higher number of much smaller LEDs to create the light behind the pixels means it can go brighter than most TVs at the same price, while offering better contrast and dark tones at the same time. The tech is mostly used on high-end QLED TVs, but this definitely doesn't carry that kind of sticker price.
And that doesn't mean sacrificing on quality in other areas. As we said in our full review, it's "packed with great features, and the performance is well above-average, especially given the price. TCL has once again made things look easy, rolling out a high-value TV lineup with a surprisingly high level of refinement."
As well as picture quality that punches above its weight, you also get great gaming support, with HDMI 2.1 support for 4K 120Hz and VRR from next-gen consoles.
The audio is a bit on the thin side – we'd recommend pairing it with a soundbar to get audio as punchy as the visuals – but that's true of so many TVs these days that we don't really count it against the TCL. It really impressed us in every other area when we tested it, and we think it's the best affordable TV today, for both movie lovers and gamers.
Read the full TCL 6-Series Roku TV (2022) review
Like the TCL above, the U8H series’ chief claim to fame is its mini-LED backlight. A major benefit to mini-LED is high brightness – something the U8H series readily delivers.
But high brightness isn’t the only thing about the U8H that impresses. It uses a Quantum Dot filter for enhanced color, and the 504 local dimming zones on the 65-inch model deliver deep and detailed blacks. Some backlight blooming – a typical artefact with LED-backlit TVs that feature local dimming – can be seen with challenging material, but that’s the exception rather than the norm.
With support for Dolby Vision, HDR10+, and HLG, the U8H series is ready for any HDR format you stream or feed to it, and it also has a Filmmaker mode that provides mostly accurate out-of-box color. Another impressive aspect of the U8H is its extensive support for next-gen gaming consoles: along with 120 Hz display, it offers Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM), and FreeSync Premium Pro.
There’s a lot to say about U8H series, but the key takeaway is that Hisense provides great value here – we slightly prefer the TCL TV above for the price, though.
Read the full Hisense 65U8H review
Best for picture quality
The Sony Bravia A95K QD-OLED TV is a stunner of a flagship 4K TV. Beautifully designed and offering high-brightness HDR with extreme color depth, it makes full use of its innovative QD-OLED panel.
The Sony A95K is bright for an OLED, and enjoys huge color vibrancy. It can deliver sensationally deep, vivid reds, and glorious greens, and it's very bright too: where most OLEDs aren't ideal for watching in brightly lit rooms, this Sony is up there with the best LED models.
The way Sony’s latest picture processing engine gets so much quality out of its new Quantum Dot OLED panel at the first time of asking is mesmerizing, giving AV fans the closest thing yet to a professional mastering monitor in your living room.
In so many ways, Sony’s QD-OLED A95K is ahead of the game. When it comes to picture quality, we found that during our testing this TV has the headroom to lift performance above and beyond the mastering norm, and provides a level of visual future-proofing we’ve not seen before. Unleashed, it is astonishingly good. However, right now it's also rather expensive, and if you're watching streaming services rather than Blu-Rays you might not get the benefit of its impressive QD-OLED panel.
We should also note here that the Samsung S95C below has a next-gen QD-OLED panel that's much brighter, and is superior in some ways, no question. But Sony's image processing and support for Dolby Vision HDR (the most popular advanced kind) makes this the cineast's choice, still.
Read our full Sony A95K review
The Samsung S95C is groundbreaking. It's the brightest OLED TV we've reviewed so far, by a long way – in our testing, it beat previous QD-OLED screens by 40% for peak HDR brightness. We measured it at 1,400 nits – compare that to the 820 nits of the LG C3 and you can see why it's so interesting… and expensive. It's so much brighter, which means it can look closer to real life – and there's an even bigger difference between bright and dark.
That's an astonishing improvement for OLED TVs, and it's not the only thing astonishing here. In our full review, we said the Samsung S95C is "particularly effective in taking high dynamic range video to a whole new level of enjoyment, drama and realism, but also feeds gloriously into the S95C’s colors, unlocking new levels of color volume and purity, even in bright color areas, we’ve never seen before on an OLED TV".
It's also packed with gaming features and HDMI 2.1 connectivity, and we measured a best-in-class 9.2ms response time when gaming. Even the sound is pretty good, though you really should pair this with a proper sound system of some kind.
So why isn't it even more strongly recommended in our list? It's such a shame the lack of Dolby Vision support means we could be getting even better HDR tones from compatible sources, the motion presets didn't handle the 24fps of film as well as we'd like, and Samsung's smart TV platform is more 'fine and functional' than truly 'smart'. But the contrast is like nothing you've ever seen, and overwhelms all objections.
Read the full Samsung S95C review
Best 8K TV
8K might feel a bit like overkill to some, but there's no doubt in our mind that the Samsung QN900B Neo QLED 8K TV is on another level of performance. Samsung's mini-LED QN900B Neo QLED 8K TV offers stunning picture quality, exceptional color and brightness, terrific sound and outstanding blacks – all in a package that's unmatched in terms of design.
For the uninitiated, Samsung's 'Quantum' mini-LEDs are 1/40th the thickness of a regular LED, meaning thousands of smaller LEDs can be packed together in a much tighter fashion, allowing for far more accurate dimming zones and black levels that are much closer to what you get from OLED.
This has one of the most advanced mini-LED screens so far, and the magic trick here is combining it with Samsung's Multi-Intelligence AI upscaling, which can take 4K images and make them look closer to 8K resolution, so there's real benefit in the higher resolution. Put simply, the QN900A is consistently able to produce images that look better than their source.
Getting there costs a lot of money, though, so this certainly isn't for everyone – and Samsung smart TV platform isn't the best, either. And you will be relying on upscaled 4K, remember, because there's practically no 8K content out there, and anything lower than 4K won't look quite as strong. But feed this TV the right high-quality movies and you'll get an amazing experience, beyond what equivalent 4K TVs can do.
Read the full Samsung QN900B review
Best cheap OLED TV
LG’s A2 series is the company’s entry-level OLED sets, but LG hasn't scrimped on the essentials. The picture quality is very strong and delivers the impressive contrast and color we've come to expect from OLED TVs, and while the A2 is not as bright as its more expensive siblings, it still delivers perhaps the most cinematic images you can get for the price, as long as you're not watching in a bright room.
Other than the panel's brightness, the main difference between the A2 and the likes of the LG C2 is that the A2 doesn't have the same gaming features, such as 120Hz refresh rates and HDMI 2.1 support. The HDMIs here are version 2.0b with Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM). If you're buying a TV for gaming, you'll definitely want the C2.
It also has less advanced image processing than the LG C2 – but it's still at a good level compared to other TVs in the same price range. For movie lovers, the LG A2 offers a lot of bang for your buck. LG's webOS interface is nicer than most, if a little busy, and the subtle contrast is exactly what you hope it would be from an OLED set.
Read our full LG A2 OLED review
The best TV for sport
The Samsung QN85B is a mini-LED TV (Samsung calls this Neo QLED), and it's apparent in the slim screen and its high levels of peak brightness for an affordable price, which is a huge part of why it's our pick for sports lovers. With much higher brightness across the whole screen than OLED delivers, it can punch through reflections in bright rooms much better than a lot of other sets, so no matter when you watch, you can still see what's going on.
It can handle motion and upscaling from lower resolutions well too, so you generally get the most clarity in everything you're watching, making it easier to follow what's going on. The speakers all around the edge give a bigger sound than most TVs, and are especially suited to that stadium sound. And it's not just about sports – this is a good option for movies and general TV too, no question.
We also recommend this TV for gamers, because the Samsung QN85B has HDMI 2.1 features across all four of its HDMI sockets and works well with next-gen consoles. But it's not just a gaming TV.
A lot of TVs beat this on image quality or price – but the Samsung should still be a tempting option, because its processing is a cut above the more budget options, and the better-looking TVs tend to be even more expensive, or not as bright.
Read our full Samsung QN85B review
As Sony’s next-to-flagship LCD TV, the X90K series delivers impressive performance for the price. Its full-array LED backlight features local dimming for deep blacks, and its LCD panel has quantum dots for enhanced brightness and color.
If you're looking for an extremely bright TV, this probably isn't the set for you: mini-LED models such as the TCL 6-Series or Samsung QN85B are much brighter than the LED setup here. And if you want the exquisite blacks of an OLED display, that technology still has the edge. But there's lots of important features here including an ATSC 3.0 tuner, excellent gaming features including 4K 120Hz and a great Google TV interface.
The X90K series is a very good overall value. It’s only slightly more pricey than the company’s X85K series models, while offering a full-array local dimming backlight – a feature the X85K series lacks, and one that provides a strong performance boost. The X90K sets are also half the price of Sony’s step-up X95K models, which have the primary advantage of mini-LED backlighting for higher peak brightness and improved contrast.
This may well be the best value TV in Sony's current line-up. It might not quite match the brightness and contrast of its more expensive siblings, but it delivers very good AV performance, does a great job with movies and sports, and it's particularly good if you have a PlayStation 5, thanks to its Auto HDR Tone Mapping feature, and ability to switch processing modes for different game genres automatically.
Read our full Sony X90K review
The best TV for sound
The Sony A80K is a mid-range OLED TV that delivers a top-tier audio performance thanks to Acoustic Surface Audio+, which uses five actuators – three behind the screen and two at either side – to vibrate the display to produce a full-range sound that's bigger than what you expect from slim TVs.
In our review, we were "surprised at how clear dialogue was and how loud the speakers could get without sounding strained". With such impressive built-in audio, we think this could easily satisfy anyone that doesn't want to fork out for a separate audio system. Although, that's not to say that a Dolby Atmos soundbar wouldn't have improved the audio performance further – but it means you only need to add something if you want to get serious. You get a more full sound than the LG C2, so if you're soundbar-adverse, this is maybe the better choice between the two.
Where the Sony A80K also shines is its picture quality. With rich colour reproduction, deep blacks, detailed shadows and good HDR brightness (for an affordable OLED TV), it stands above the rest. It also offers solid next-generation gaming features, including 4K/120Hz video input, variable refresh rate (VRR) and auto low latency mode (ALLM).
Read our full Sony A80K review
How to choose the best TV for you
Which TV is the best quality?
That depends how you define quality. We define it as the ultimate mix of picture quality, features, design and price – when recommending the TV that's best for most people at any given price, that's what we're looking for. And that's why the LG C2 is at the top of our list – there are TVs that do individual things better, but nothing else does so much stuff so well, for the same kind of price.
For sheer picture quality, the Sony A95K is currently our choice, for example – but it's extremely expensive, and actually misses some features that the LG C2 (and other more affordable TVs have).
Which brand is best for TVs in 2023?
There's no one brand that does TVs better than the others, but there are definitely some TV makes that excel in certain areas more than their rivals.
Some of the best brands on our list are Hisense, LG, Samsung, Sony, TCL and Vizio. They all tend to be the top-performing brands at the premium end, though all bring out a wide range of models each year.
The LG C2 is at the top of our best TV guide right now with an outstanding picture and although it's expensive, it's excellent value for money. This brand certainly makes excellent OLED TVs – in fact, LG Display makes the OLED panels for most other brands. We like that LG offers a wide range of TVs, including different budgets and sizes – the C2 goes from 42 inches all the way up to 83-inches. LG's webOS is one of our favorites, an easy to use operating system that feels intuitive.
Samsung uses quantum dot technology to bring you brightness and excellent contrast. Like LG, Samsung offers a huge variety of TV sizes and prices. Samsung's smart TV software is Tizen, which we think is good overall. The brand also offers some extras, like its One Connect box with some TVs, and styles that are a little unique – take a look at the various iterations of Samsung's The Frame TVs.
Sony is another major player in the TV space. Its screens boast stunning picture quality and build quality. Although, like other brands in this list, there's a wide range across the board. One interesting difference about Sony is its really pushed its Cognitive XR processor, a processing chip added to its TVs from 2021 that boosts vision and audio performance.
Of course you shouldn't feel hemmed in by these four brands – Panasonic offers excellent premium TVs with a focus on image quality in particular, and Hisense and TCL offer great value in the mid-range and affordable end of the market.
Which is better OLED or QLED?
This is one of the biggest and more contentious TV tech questions of the moment. Luckily we've covered all of the details in our OLED vs QLED guide.
However, if you're looking for a summary we'd say that QLED is a great option for brightness if you'll watch in bright, sunlit conditions; whereas OLED TVs offer better viewing angles and superior contrast for gorgeous movie-like images, as long as you can control the lighting.
Is 4K better than OLED?
Luckily, you don't need to decide whether to go with OLED or 4K – you can have both! 4K refers to the resolution (ie, the number of pixels on the screen), while OLED refers to the panel technology (ie, what the pixels are made from).
So you can have 4K screens that are OLED (almost all of them are, apart from some pricey 8K OLED TVs), and you can have 4K screens that are QLED, mini-LED or other tech.
Is LG better than Samsung?
Both LG and Samsung are excellent TV brands and you can't really go wrong with either. However, there are some areas where one TV maker could be a better option than the other.
An LG TV tops our best TVs guide, but Samsung is the market leader for sales overall. If you're looking for the most impressive picture quality out there, regardless of price, nothing currently beats LG's OLED panels for color and contrast.
But Samsung TV's are incredibly bright, particularly in more affordable models. We also love Samsung's lifestyle sets, like The Frame QLED 4K TV (2022), for combining performance with style. And its cheaper TVs are usually excellent value for money.
How we test the best TVs
The best TVs are chosen by our writers and editors based on a few main criteria: their overall picture performance including contrast, color saturation and motion handling, as well as their feature set, design and smart TV platform. We're looking for TVs that are well-built and have the technology to last for the next few years.
Obviously, there is a level of subjectivity that goes into the review process, however we strive to maintain fairness across brands by testing the same type of content on each screen (HD/SDR, 4K/HDR, games, movies and music) and reporting what we've found the experience to be like.
We test the brightness and color range using a colorimeter, and we ensure that we test 'out-of-the-box' as well as after calibrating the screens ourselves, so that we can tell you what you'll get if you don't tweak at all, as well as what the TVs are capable of in the right hands.
Like our readers, our writer's and editor's room layouts differ and may cause slight disparities in testing, however we make every attempt to question our assumptions and troubleshoot our issues with performance in every review.
